Apr 24, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Today in Renton, Washington, Valley Medical Center announced a new comprehensive contractual relationship involving medical laboratory services with PACLAB Network Laboratories of Bellevue, Washington. This is a significant development in the Greater Seattle market for several reasons.
First, it means that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) has lost another important hospital relationship in Greater Seattle, once again to PACLAB. It was back in December, 2003, when 244-bed Evergreen Hospital Medical Center of Kirkland, Washington, similarly terminated its comprehensive laboratory testing relationship with Quest Diagnostics and became part of the PACLAB regional laboratory network.
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Mar 26, 2009 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Digital Pathology Imaging: Coming Soon to a Pathology Group near You!
Will pathologists soon say “sayonara” to glass slides? Plenty of smart money already bets the answer to that question is “yes”! Every pathologist in the United States and abroad should be watching developments in whole slide imaging and digital pathology systems. That’s because digital pathology imaging is a trend with momentum-and it also has the potential to be disruptive, although probably not in the short term.
One powerful sign that digital imaging in pathology is ready to go mainstream is the take-up of digital imaging solutions and digital pathology systems by leading pathology laboratories in the United States and developed countries across the globe. These are academic and tertiary center pathology labs, along with major private pathology companies. As the pathology profession’s first-movers and early adopters, it is these laboratories which set the pace for the entire profession. Their acceptance and growing use of digital imaging and digital pathology systems can be taken as evidence that the current generation of imaging and informatics technologies perform adequately.
However, there is another powerful force propelling digital imaging forward in anatomic pathology. It is the emergence of molecular assays which incorporate digital images and use either computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) or pattern recognition software to help the pathologist make a precise diagnosis. By design, these molecular tests require the pathologist to work from a digital image of the specimen. At The Dark Report‘s second annual Molecular Summit on the Integration of In Vivo and In Vitro Diagnostics, conducted last February in Philadelphia, examples of these types of emerging assays were abundant. (more…)
Mar 16, 2009 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Changes to profession are working their way into the clinical marketplace
Despite rapid advances in many areas of diagnostic services, most pathologists practicing in community hospitals continue to enjoy a familiar daily routine that has varied little over the past decade. That is about to quickly change, if Dark Daily’s assessment of new technologies and new market forces is accurate.
At least four powerful forces are poised to radically alter the daily workflow and activities of surgical pathologists in community practice settings:
- One, Dark Daily predicts that there will be a rapid uptake in clinical practice of new molecular assays for primary diagnosis of a growing number of cancers. Many of these new molecular assays will involve computer-aided diagnosis of the image, or will incorporate pattern recognition features to guide the pathologists to a very precise answer. The net effect of these developments is that surgical pathologists will rely less on the microscope as the primary tool. Rather, more cancer cases will be diagnosed using a combination of standard microscopy and other assays or techniques.
- Two, Dark Daily predicts that revolutionary changes in the histology laboratory will finally address the variability in the quality of specimen processing and preparation-both within a histology laboratory and across other histology laboratories within a region. Key trends here are use of Lean and similar work flow optimization methods in support of histology automation solutions.
- Three, Dark Daily also predicts that these changes in histology will end the reign of “batch” processing of specimens, often using overnight processing methods. Instead, histology laboratories will be organized around single-piece work flow, using rapid processing methods. In turn, that will change the daily routine of pathologists served by the histology laboratory. No longer will they start their day with a tall stack of yesterday’s case referrals and the pressure to work through the cases as early in the day as possible. Instead, rapid histology processing in small batches and single piece work flow will feed same-day case referrals to the pathologist evenly from morning through afternoon.
- Four, Dark Daily further predicts a surprisingly fast take-up of digital imaging and even fully-digital pathology systems by smaller pathology group practices. Generation Y pathologists will be eager advocates of this transition within private practice settings, as much of their medical training relied almost exclusively on digital images.
Pathologists and pathology practice administrators who want to stay ahead of these forceful trends will find insights and answers at the upcoming Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management, which takes place on April 28-29, 2009 at the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans. (more…)
Mar 5, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
New York Times says: “Obama Taps Clinton Ideas but Not Clinton Herself”
New President Barack Obama is not wasting any time when it comes to healthcare reform. Today, he’s convening a healthcare summit in Washington, DC. Invited are stakeholders that range from business and labor groups to providers, health insurers, and consumer groups.
In its prospective coverage of this healthcare summit yesterday, the New York Times used the headline “Obama Taps Clinton Ideas but Not Clinton Herself” . The NYT reporter pointedly observed that a great distance has been maintained between Hillary Clinton and the White House on the subject of healthcare. In fact, the Secretary of State will be in Brussells, Belgium, today—thousands of miles removed from Obama’s health summit!
On the other hand, NYT reporter Sheryl Gay Stolbert observed that Obama is surrounding himself with Clinton advisors, writing “Mr. Obama is at once trying to distance himself from the baggage Mrs. Clinton carries as the architect of that plan, while demonstrating that he has learned from it. He is drawing on the experiences of a host of aides who are Clinton veterans, notably Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. But he is not relying on Mrs. Clinton herself.”
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Jun 1, 2007 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News
Thanks to everyone who participated in our first Dark Daily reader survey earlier this month. We got a fantastic turnout for our first survey and got some great feedback which we will certainly be able to use to improve Dark Daily. As promised, we wanted to share some of the results with you.
• 44% of our readers found out about Dark Daily from The Dark Report, 20% found out from a colleague of theirs, 14% from a Web search, and 13% from the Executive War College.
• 50% of our subscribers have been with us for less than 6 months! Only 10% of our subscribers have been with us for over a year.
• The vast majority of our readers are likely to read their Dark Daily e-briefings Monday through Friday, but not on Saturdays or Sundays.
• 85% of Dark Daily readers thought the frequency of Dark Dailies was just right, with an even split of the rest of our readers thinking there were too many or too few Dark Dailies.
• Our Dark Daily readers’ favorite category was, by far, Laboratory News. A close second was Laboratory Management and Operations. Other notables were Laboratory Sales & Marketing, Laboratory Compliance, Legal & Malpractice, and Laboratory Managed Care, Contracts, and Payer Reimbursement. None of Dark Dailies categories had less than 35% of our audience feeling that the category was not useful.
• The distribution of our laboratory readers is fairly evenly spread among those that work for hospital laboratories, small independent laboratories, large independent laboratories, and laboratory chains (such a Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corporation of America).
• We were surprised to discover that some of our most vocal readers are from outside the United States and have requested more items that pertain to an international audience. We will try to comply as we see relevant international laboratory news!
• A number of our readers cited their favorite Dark Dailies as the e-briefings based on the continuing issues resulting from the exclusive national contract between United Healthcare and LabCorp (see Judging the UnitedHealth Decision to Drop Quest Diagnostics in Favor of LabCorp and United Health Disrupts the National Contract Status Quo Between the Two Blood Brothers).
As always, we welcome your personal responses to the survey results, your ideas for other reader surveys, and your ideas for new Dark Daily e-briefings. Thanks again for your participation!
Your Editors,
Robert Michel and Sylvia Christensen
